The Utilitaria

The Utilitaria

2112

I can do this. It isn't even difficult, more a matter of simply letting something happen than anything resembling a choice. It's just, I'm not sure that I should. There's a faint thud behind me as someone moves a heavy metal bolt across the door of the faraday cage, and then a crunch and a faint warming sensation over my back as the door is sealed not merely beyond any conceivable attempt at hacking or lockpicking, but beyond any means of gaining entrance that could be said to involve opening a door that already exists.

'Ok, we have confirmed physical privacy,' says the sysop, Calvin. 'Just keep your cool and we can get through this, no problem. Easy in, slightly-less-easy out.'

He's not making that last part up, because the door has just disappeared. The control mechanisms are slagged inside their casings and the edges of the hatch have melted into the wall. When I'm ready to leave I'll give a hand signal through the tiny window and they'll use heavy cutting instruments to get me out again.

'Your heartbeat and stress levels are up from normal, Souvicou,' Calvin murmurs. 'And 'normal' for you is hardly optimal. I still don't know why you haven't rejuvenated.'

'I'm only 43 and not vain or lazy enough to take that many months away from my life,' I snapped back. It's a question I'm getting more and more often these days.

'You always were a workaholic,' Calvin laughed. 'Just be glad we're not recording this for posterity, you look like one of the basic techs.'

That's an exaggeration, but whenever I'm not in the public eye I never pay much attention to appearance – an unusual trait for a quadrillionaire, I supposed. The others think I dress simply to seem more down to earth and ordinary, but the truth is that past a certain point I just can't be bothered with affectations of wealth. It's not like anyone doesn't know I'm rich enough to own nations. I'm just wearing a dark, baggy jumpsuit that probably isn't the right size for my small frame, hair gathered back by integral flex-fibres into a ball that isn't really a bun.

'Ok, I'm going to start shutting down your inlays. Stand by for loss of audio,' Calvin says. 'I'm ordering them to permanently dissolve the ATP transducers that provide power. They'll flush out of your system over the next few hours.'

'I'm going to need surgery to get them working again,' I say, before the private channel cuts out. 'Don't you think that's a little paranoid? Do we really think the Utilitaria would wait until now to try something aggressive?'

'Not paranoid enough,' Calvin snaps back. 'How could you ever be paranoid enough when dealing with an AI that might be forever beyond our comprehension? We've only provided security against all the attacks we can imagine. That just isn't enough.'

'If you don't think it's a good idea to continue with the tests we can stop now. But this is as safe as we can make it without simply locking up the Utilitaria. There's only one way to send messages out and that's via the window.'

The window in question is thick glass, transparent only in a narrow range of optical frequencies, making the view of the rest of Pantheon station, a few moray-class orbital tugs and the Earth seem washed out, like a low-power screen. Aside from that, the room's walls are blank, dully reflective foam-metal alloy with a few light strips, like a giant silvered womb. There isn't even any independent air recycling – until they slice the door open I'm slowly draining oxygen from the room.

I can see the LED lights from the mass of computronium that fills the room reflect off the glass, shining like anomalous stars. The real stars are far too faint to be visible in the ambient light of the room, habitat cluster and Earth below. From here it's only possible to glimpse the non-rotating globe cluster that makes up about half of Pantheon's mass. The anchor for the orbital tether and the rotating hub are out of view, but it seems like I can feel the microscopic tug from all of that mass behind me. A quick mental calculation suggests that isn't possible.